As far as chemical warfare is concerned, one can’t help but draw comparisons to Saddam Hussein’s devastating attack on his own people.

The Syrian attack by Bashar Assad is something that has reportedly been relied upon for years whenever soldiers reached a stalemate in standoffs with rebels. The latest incident has killed at least 1,429 civilians, nearly a third of which were children. Parallels are justly being drawn to Hussein’s own heinous attacks on Kurdish minorities back in the late 1980s. In 1988, at the tail end of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein OK’ed the usage of all kinds of chemicals in his army’s attack on Iranians and Kurdish rebels.

The Halabja massacre earned Saddam Hussein the disgraceful honor of being the first leader to turn the cross-hairs of chemical warfare on people living within his own borders.

Evidence is mounting in the case for Syria’s complicity in conducting chemical warfare — just yesterday John Kerry confirmed blood and hair samples were tested positive for sarin. While we brief the world on our findings, and while countries scramble to pick sides in a civil war that has sparked an international crisis, it behooves you to pick up a few titles on the history of chemical warfare to understand why these kinds of acts cannot be ignored and can never be justified.